What’s up with Kyle Freeland?

As the 108th most influential Cubs blog, we have a sworn duty to stay in our lane and only give you the highest quality of Cubs analysis. However, I just can't get over Kyle Freeland for some reason. Yes, he's not on the Cubs, and yes, he only played the Cubs once (game score of exactly 50). What's interesting to Kyle Freeland is that he is seemingly the best case scenario of every Cubs pitcher of the last generation: that is, he doesn't ever strike anyone out.

The league is striking out more and more frequently. The league is walking more and more frequently. The league is homering more and more frequently. Kyle Freeland, however, stands out in stark contrast to this trend.

Name

Team

TTO%

Ty Blach

Giants

17.99%

Ivan Nova

Pirates

19.79%

Jeremy Hellickson

Phillies

22.60%

Miguel Gonzalez

White Sox

24.01%

Josh Tomlin

Indians

24.15%

Mike Leake

Cardinals

24.58%

Kyle Freeland

Rockies

25.24%

Matt Cain

Giants

25.34%

Zach Davies

Brewers

25.59%

Clayton Richard

Padres

25.61%

Freeland doesn't lead the league in No True Outcomes percentage (though he's pretty close). He walks too many people for that to be the case (9.1% of PAs end in a walk). The interesting thing about Freeland in this regard is that he plays half of his games in Coors Field, which is a notorious launching pad for hitters. Freeland gets around this by inducing an obscene amount of groundballs:

Name

Team

BABIP

GB/FB

LD%

GB%

FB%

Lance McCullers

Astros

0.281

3.23

17.50%

63.00%

19.50%

Marcus Stroman

Blue Jays

0.316

2.61

16.60%

60.30%

23.10%

Clayton Richard

Padres

0.341

2.95

21.70%

58.50%

19.80%

Kyle Freeland

Rockies

0.299

2.39

17.00%

58.50%

24.50%

Tyler Chatwood

Rockies

0.259

2.44

20.10%

56.70%

23.20%

Luis Severino

Yankees

0.275

2

15.80%

56.10%

28.10%

Jaime Garcia

Braves

0.272

2.09

17.60%

55.70%

26.70%

Mike Leake

Cardinals

0.264

2.29

21.00%

55.00%

24.00%

Jhoulys Chacin

Padres

0.293

1.8

16.90%

53.40%

29.70%

Wade Miley

Orioles

0.324

2.07

21.40%

53.00%

25.60%

That's generally good company to be in. The easiest way to get by without striking people out is to prevent balls from going in the air; that's doubly important when playing in Coors Field. Put together, he actually pitches better at Coors than on the road (.712 opposing OPS home, .817 away). While groundballs result in hits more often than flyballs, flyballs go for home runs at an ever increasing rate (a combination of a juiced ball and more athletic hitters). Freeland, to this point, is showing the way to be successful despite the obvious deficiencies in a put-away pitch (which he'll likely never have).

In an attempt to bring this into at least quasi-relevance for the Cubs, I think this underscores the importance to limiting flyballs in particular. While it's true that pitchers only have limited control over their batted-ball profiles, it's self-evident that they can influence it somewhat – if they couldn't, there would be no variation from pitcher to pitcher. Pitchers like John Lackey are almost entirely useless simply on the basis of the fact they allow too many flyballs – even yesterday, it was clear to see that Montgomery allowed a home run to Stanton that was a double any year before 2015 or to any other hitter besides Stanton. The rules of the game are changing, and changing quickly. The pitching staff needs to be aware of that, and they need to make changes in approach if at all possible. There's at least some viable path forward if you can induce groundballs and reduce flyballs – at least there is until Freeland regresses to the mean.

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Comments

I generally view pitching as a triangle made up of K%, BB%, and GB%. Obviously great pitchers are good at multiple things, but in general to be successful if a pitcher is bad in one area of the triangle, they need to make it up in some combination in the other areas.

Sometimes pitchers can try and make a trade off to improve certain areas, so a pitcher might decide to start throwing more sinkers in the zone, lowering their K%, but if they can raise their GB% enough without hurting their BB%, it’s a solid trade.

Just the general way I think about pitchers when I evaluate them. Personally I’m a big fan of K%, and especially K-BB%, but it’s certainly possible for a pitcher to succeed with a low K% high GB% approach.

Edwin: Just the general way I think about pitchers when I evaluate them. Personally I’m a big fan of K%, and especially K-BB%, but it’s certainly possible for a pitcher to succeed with a low K% high GB% approach.

I think the number of low strikeout pitchers who have succeeded for several years is rather limited. There’s so much data in baseball that just about anything is possible and it’s certainly happened and will happen again and again, but odds are a low strikeout pitcher will not have much success at the MLB level. I think that’s what irritates me so much about all these low strikeout pitchers the Cubs have in the minor leagues. Out of dozens of pitchers, they probably won’t get more than a few useful years out of them as starters.

dmick89: I think the number of low strikeout pitchers who have succeeded for several years is rather limited. There’s so much data in baseball that just about anything is possible and it’s certainly happened and will happen again and again, but odds are a low strikeout pitcher will not have much success at the MLB level. I think that’s what irritates me so much about all these low strikeout pitchers the Cubs have in the minor leagues. Out of dozens of pitchers, they probably won’t get more than a few useful years out of them as starters.

Extremely true. I don’t think Freeland is demonstrably different than, say, Dallas Beeler. That said, the only route to sustained success if you aren’t striking out hitters is to get the to ground out as frequently as possible, which Freeland has been able to do. In an environment that is rapidly shifting to favor groundball pitchers, it’s opening up a window that was previously closed to low-strikeout pitchers. The margin is extremely thin, but it is getting wider.

Is it hard to pair low BB% with high GB%? I remember scanning through fangraphs one time, and the amount of pitchers with that skill set seemed low to me. I was thinking maybe pitches which traditionally are GB pitches (sinkers/curveballs/splitters/changeups) are harder to control. Or are GB’s tied to movement/velocity, which might make it harder to control the type of stuff which normally results in more GB’s?

Edwin:
Is it hard to pair low BB% with high GB%?I remember scanning through fangraphs one time, and the amount of pitchers with that skill set seemed low to me.I was thinking maybe pitches which traditionally are GB pitches (sinkers/curveballs/splitters/changeups) are harder to control.Or are GB’s tied to movement/velocity, which might make it harder to control the type of stuff which normally results in more GB’s?

I’ve always thought (perhaps with no basis in reality) that GB pitchers rely on downwards movement, and that the more movement a pitcher has, the more likely they are to live outside the zone (which increases walk rate).

Perhaps an enterprising analyst could also tie release point height to GB rate (or, to be more specific, the ABSOLUTE VALUE of the difference between pitcher x’s release point and the average release point). I’ve thought (again, with perhaps no evidence), that tall pitcher induce more grounders due to a high release point (and therefore a tumbling ball), and submariners obviously try to never get a ball above a hitter’s belt.

cerulean: Only 22M lose coverage. In 22 revisions, they may come up with Obamacare.

If the bill gets signed into law, I guess the silver lining is that a bunch of people who support Trump might die. But a lot of people who tried not to fuck over the world probably will as well, so I guess it’s still a bad thing on balance.

Rarely, a catcher can make a successful pick-off throw to a base to surprise an inattentive or incautious baserunner. Especially at the higher levels of baseball (where this play almost never results in an out), the catcher’s snap throws are mainly for psychological effect.

JKV:
So Miggy is throwing the pitching staff (mostly Jake) under the bus.

Should be an interesting rest of the season if the team can’t get its shit together.

With all the injuries and instances of underperformance, this team is reminding me a lot of the 2009 team. Good thing they won the World Series last year instead of getting bounced im the NLDS, or this would be a lot more frustrating than it already is.

I think this is more frustrating because this team is built, supposedly, for now and the future, but both of those are in doubt. The 2009 team was old and its window was closing, but this team is young and their window doesn’t look as though it will be around beyond this year.